UKPOL.CO.UK

Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Charlotte Leslie – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Charlotte Leslie – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2014-05-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the Environment Agency expects to conclude its investigation into Churngold Recycling Ltd.

    Dan Rogerson

    This is a complex investigation that the Environment Agency is working hard to complete. Legal challenges to the investigation in the civil courts have caused delays. Once the investigation is complete and the matter has been legally reviewed, the Environment Agency will decide on any appropriate enforcement.

  • Richard Fuller – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Richard Fuller – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Fuller on 2014-05-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the annual cost to the public purse of maintaining court buildings which are not listed as closed and which have no cases listed for (a) three, (b) six and (c) 12 months.

    Jeremy Wright

    Providing a detailed response to these questions will require officials to manually collate data. This cannot be accomplished in the time available. My honourable friend Shailesh Vara will therefore write with a detailed response as soon as possible, and will place a copy of this letter in the library of the house.

  • Virendra Sharma – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Virendra Sharma – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many individual funding requests for the prescription of Duodopa to patients with Parkinson’s disease were (a) made, (b) accepted, (c) accepted following an appeal and (d) rejected in (i) 2011-12, (ii) 2012-13 and (iii) 2013-14.

    Norman Lamb

    Prior to April 2013, primary care trusts were responsible for dealing with individual funding requests and information on individual funding request decisions, or on the time taken to consider such requests, was not collected centrally.

    From April 2013, NHS England assumed responsibility for commissioning adult specialist neurosciences services, including the majority of services for patients with Parkinson’s disease, with some being the responsibility of clinical commissioning groups.

    NHS England has informed us that information on the number of individual funding requests made to NHS England is not currently available. NHS England is improving its data collection mechanisms and aims to improve availability of such information in the future.

    NHS England has advised us it aims to inform the requesting clinician of the outcome of the individual funding request panel decision within 40 working days from the date of receipt of a completed request form. There are no plans to collect information on the average time taken for these decisions to be made.

  • Priti Patel – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Priti Patel – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Priti Patel on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions his Department has had with the St Lucia government on delays in the criminal justice system in homicide cases in that country.

    Mark Simmonds

    Our officials have had a number of discussions with the Government of St Lucia about delays in the criminal justice system, particularly in relation to cases involving British nationals. In December last year, our High Commissioner to St Lucia raised the issue with the St Lucian Home Affairs Minister and in April 2014, the British Resident Commissioner raised the issue with the St Lucian Prime Minister. I also wrote to the Prime Minister of St Lucia in September about the delays in the criminal justice system.

    The Foreign and Commonwealth Office supports wider government efforts to build the St Lucian Government’s capacity to prosecute serious crime. This includes the deployment of a Crown Prosecution Service Criminal Justice Advisor (CJA) to the Eastern Caribbean. The CJA provides strategic analysis and advice to politicians and practitioners (judiciary, prosecutors and investigators) in order to improve the efficiency of the justice system and remove blockages to effective prosecutions.

  • Frank Field – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Frank Field – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Frank Field on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of local authorities have higher than average not known rates for young people not in employment, education or training; and what steps he is taking to address such gaps in data.

    Matthew Hancock

    It is local authorities who are responsible for collecting data about the activity of young people in their area.

    The Department for Education regularly publishes locally collected data on young people’s activities, including the proportion of young people whose activity is not known. The latest quarterly figures covering young people of academic age 16 and 17 as at the end of December 2013 are available online at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/participation-in-education-and-training-by-local-authority. These include both the average for England and the figures for each local authority.

    The Department published statutory guidance in March 2013 setting out the requirement of local authorities to track young people’s participation so that those who are not in education or training can be identified. The guidance is available online at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/participation-of-young-people-education-employment-and-training.

  • Tessa Munt – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Tessa Munt – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tessa Munt on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress NHS England is making on improving access to stereotactic ablative radiotherapy for patients suffering with cancer of the prostate, liver, pancreas, spinal tumours and cancer of the head and neck.

    Jane Ellison

    The business case for the gamma-knife centre at Oxford was originally agreed with the primary care trust (PCT) prior to April 2013, with an assumption that the PCT would stop sending patients to other centres elsewhere, and start sending them to the new centre once it was completed.

    As of April 2013, commissioning of these services transferred to the specialist commissioning team in NHS England.

    NHS England is currently undertaking a review of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) (e.g. Gamma Knife) and stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR, e.g. Cyber-knife) for intracranial conditions to establish what the national demand is in line with its national clinical commissioning policies on SRS and SABR, and what the national capacity requirements are for this specialised treatment.

    Until the capacity requirements are clear, NHS England has said that it would be inappropriate to encourage new market entrants to provide this service as it cannot be clear what the potential consequential impacts on service quality, sustainability (financial and clinical) and potential unintended changes to patient pathways will be. Until the review is complete NHS England has said no substantive changes will be made to the current provision.

    As part of the transition of this service to NHS England, it developed, consulted upon and published a series of national clinical commissioning policies for intracranial SRS and SRT treatment.

    A report setting out the emerging findings of this review has been shared with clinical reference groups to seek their views and help NHS England develop a final draft. Once the views of stakeholders have been gathered, this will then go to Specialised Commissioning Oversight Group (SCOG) to agree a preferred option. Once the SCOG has a preferred option, NHS England will consult with patients and professionals and take account of those views when taking a final decision. If it is concluded there are to be significant changes in the provision of services, there will be a full public consultation before any changes are made.

    NHS England is expecting that the draft report will be ready for consideration at SCOG in June and then it would commence a public consultation on the draft report and preferred option during July to September. The report and recommendations will then be finalised after taking account of the views expressed during the consultation stage and a final decision taken by SCOG in September 2014.

    NHS England inherited the range of gamma knife providers currently in place, of which University College London Hospitals (UCLH) was not one. NHS England is currently undertaking a review of stereotactic radiosurgery provision and will consult widely with stakeholders and providers prior to making changes to service provision. There are two long established providers of gamma knife surgery commissioned by NHS England located in central London to whom patients from all six London specialist neurosurgical centres have been referred for gamma knife treatment for a number of years, including patients from UCLH.

    Finally, there was no contract in place with UCLH to provide gamma knife surgery for any PCT prior to 1 April 2013. Any activity that may have been undertaken there would have been done on an ad-hoc, non-contracted basis and NHS England does not hold this information.

  • Jonathan Reynolds – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Jonathan Reynolds – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Reynolds on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many turbines of capacity of sub-15KW were installed in (a) 2012 and (b) 2013.

    Michael Fallon

    The number of sub-15kW wind turbines accredited under the Feed-in Tariff scheme during 2012 and 2013, were 1,747 and 327 respectively.

    Installations are grouped into years based on their ‘commissioning date’ i.e. the date the technology was physically installed and deemed to be up and running.

  • Mike Weatherley – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Mike Weatherley – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Weatherley on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps his Department is taking to ensure a smooth and effective transitional period for the repeal of section 52 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

    Mr David Willetts

    The Government is committed to consulting on how and when to introduce the repeal of section 52 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to ensure a fair and proportionate transitional period.

    The first stage of this consultation process was a Call for Evidence which was launched in October 2013. The Government has reviewed the responses and is preparing an Impact Assessment and consultation document that will allow the Government to make proposals on transitional provisions and consult on these.

  • Richard Burden – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Richard Burden – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he plans to take in response to the withdrawal of the Israeli government from US-sponsored peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

    Hugh Robertson

    We remain fully committed to supporting efforts for peace and I will visit the region to that end in the near future. We urge the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to use the coming weeks to find the common ground and political strength needed to resume the peace negotiations and encourage other countries to maintain support for that objective.

  • Jim Shannon – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Jim Shannon – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the number of premature deaths per year attributable to air pollution from diesel-fuelled vehicles; and what discussions he has had with the Royal Colleges about ways of reducing such deaths.

    Jane Ellison

    My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had no discussions with the Royal Colleges on actions to reduce the health impacts of air pollution. The actions the Government is taking to reduce the health impacts of air pollution have been given in a previous reply to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) on 28 April 2014, Official Reply, columns 474-75W.

    In 2010, the Department’s expert advisory Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants published an estimate of the mortality effect in 2008 of long term exposure to particulate air pollution arising from human activities. The mortality burden for the United Kingdom was estimated as an effect equivalent to nearly 29,000 deaths. Whilst this includes mortality attributable to particulate matter arising from diesel engines, separate figures for the impact of diesel-fuelled vehicles have not been produced by the Department.